Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation

Background

A family heir sued a museum run by an entity controlled by Spain to recover a Camille Pissarro painting taken during the Nazi era. Lilly Cassirer surrendered the painting to the Nazis in 1939 to obtain an exit visa; her grandson Claude later searched for it. The painting moved through private collections, was bought by Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, and sold in the early 1990s to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation. Claude sued in federal court in California, invoking the foreign-sovereign immunity law so the court could hear the case, and lower courts found the Foundation fell within the law’s expropriation exception and allowed the suit to proceed.

Reasoning

The Court faced one narrow question: which choice-of-law rule decides what property law applies in an FSIA suit raising only state or foreign-law claims. The Justices relied on Section 1606 of the statute, which says a foreign state that is not immune is liable like a private individual. That meant the same choice-of-law rule that would apply in a private suit must apply here. Using that approach, the Court concluded courts should apply the forum State’s choice-of-law rule (here California’s), not a federal common-law rule that the Ninth Circuit had used.

Real world impact

The ruling changes how U.S. courts pick the governing law in suits against foreign-state-controlled entities for property, tort, or contract claims: forum states’ rules will decide which country’s substantive law applies. The decision resolves a split among appeals courts, may alter outcomes in art restitution and similar disputes, and sends the case back to lower courts to apply California’s choice rules.